Darkness enveloped us quickly at Plaskett Creek Park down at Big Sur where I’d gone for Burning Uke 8 – it was a Thursday night, so no big community music jammed was planned, just a group of people getting together to sing and play by the campfire. I fumbled around in the tent I got help setting up for stuff – it was so dark and I couldn’t really see anything. I could hear rustling outside and hear the ocean tide, though. I managed to find a flashlight and the special LED light, and the black case that had my purple music stand in it…and of course the Uke and the songbooks.
I just followed the music as I tripped a couple of times on uneven ground and a small hill towards the people playing and singing by a huge roaring fire. As I approached, suddenly a glowing set of lights in the shape of a ukulele high up on a tree lit up and everyone cheered.
“Welcome to Burning Uke!” I could hear someone say. Everyone cheered again – I saw shadows of people, most with ukes. Oh and there was that hyperactive hippie guy, Pat, whom I’d seen at the Santa Cruz Beach jams on Saturday mornings before – I couldn’t miss him even in the darkness with his bright-colored tie-dye on. He had this huge upright bass he’d made and he never stopped moving and dancing while he played. People sat on benches and folding chairs, some stood, music stands with yellow lights shined dully, and then there were the headlights that people wore on their heads that constantly moved. I didn’t feel comfortable with one of those headlights. Somehow my LED light and my books ended up sitting on a wooden picnic table and when it got completely dark, I couldn’t find them again – I hoped they wouldn’t get mixed with others. I finally stood up with my uke strapped on – thankful that I had a shoulder strap for it and looked on with a couple of other people huddled around a music stand, with someone’s head light (literally on people’s heads) guiding us as someone would call out a song number from our Santa Cruz ukulele songbooks.
Amid the campfire smoke blended with sea air, we sang and sang – and I played even when my hands felt too cold to strum or finger the chords, feeling the strings of the uke against me – I could see some of the ladies, two of them called “the Hula girls” whom I thought I recognized from Santa Cruz, dancing close to the campfire as we played song after song – some songs I knew and some I didn’t. I played them all and I didn’t care if my fingers got sore. I thought of my special friend Mike H. This was all because of him – he gave me a ukulele and now here I was surrounded by all these people at a campsite playing music. Who knew this would happen?
Mike H. had showed up at the monthly second Monday ukulele jam that I’d stumbled upon in July at my favorite coffee shop in Mountain View – I was thrilled to see the sign because I was still learning the ukulele chords from diagrams I downloaded from this website – amid having to move from Mountain View to San Jose and all the craziness of my life. Of course he dominated the entire jam of 40 to 50 people when he started to sing in his wonderfully loud booming voice, and he even grabbed my uke and strummed a couple of chords loudly and distinctly – those he could still finger even after the stroke paralyzed the left side of his body.
Dave F., who was running the jam shouted, “Why don’t you lead us on the next song? C’mon up!”
Mike, who had gone through a lot of trouble to wedge in right next to me, between me and this other guy who was trying to look at my songbook, maneuvering his cane, just smiled and waved and said, “It’s a lot of trouble for me to get up there. I’ll just lead from here.”
And so Mike H. led the whole group in the next song – I believe it was Stand by Me, and I strummed the rhythm on the uke as close to the way Mike H. strummed it as I could, thinking of how cool it would be if I could reach behind him and be his left hand and finger the chords while he strummed.
I thought of Mike H. while sitting there at the campsite in the darkness playing and singing – and I wished that he could be there with me. But he said he can’t camp anymore, that it’s too hard, and besides, it’s so hard because it bugs him that he can’t just pick up an instrument and play it.
This guy named Andy, who apparently was one of the founders of Burning Uke, played some really cool stuff on his tiny ukulele – he and his wife had traveled all the way from Hawaii to be here. It was so much fun – I wasn’t a spectator, I was playing right along with everyone else. When everyone finally decided it was time to go back to their tents to get ready for a long, serious weekend of workshops, jams and playing. With the fire going down and people with headlights and flashlights heading down the hill to their tents, I became a little frightened – I didn’t want to say anything to anyone, but how the heck was I going to find my stuff, get down the hill and find my tent? I could feel the dampness in the air as I managed to find my books which had become damp and my LED light. Carrying all of my things, I slowly made my way down the hill, trying to keep hold of my flashlight – towards the tents. I could hear people laughing and talking in the dark.